Besides Garriot's broad, sweeping, ridiculous, over-generalizing statements; his critique of failed programmers and artists being lumped into the designer category and not really being rigorous about it sounds valid enough. But there are way more interesting designers, even in the AAA space, than he gives credit.

I really enjoyed the article on game writing. Bissell is absolutely correct that the purpose of games is not "quite" to tell stories. Gears of War certainly isn't a paragon of game writing, but the perspective Bissell gives is certainly interesting.